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Patents: Chinese vintage

QIU-HAI-YU of the Hefei Iron and Steel Company, in Hefei Anhui Province
in China, has filed a European patent application (305 973) on a fascinating
idea for accelerating the rate at which wines and spirits age.

Apparently, the Chinese have tried several ways of ageing alcoholic
drinks. They found that subjecting the liquor to microwaves for a few hours
has an effect equivalent to two or three months’ storage. But the effect
is only temporary. After a few days, the liquor tastes young again. Attempts
at ageing drinks with bacteria have also failed, because most bacteria die
in alcohol.

The new idea is to use the principles of surface physics. The inventor
believes that ageing occurs at the interface between the liquid and container.
Thus, he reasons, increasing the area that the liquor is in contact with
will increase activity at the surface and accelerate ageing. Experiments,
he says, have shown that the greater the surface area, the more pronounced
and faster the ageing.

The inventor admits that the idea sounds simple, but claims that, surprisingly,
no one in the liquor industry has used it before.

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He increases the surface area of the container by filling a container
with baffles, plates, cubes, rings, spheres or other irregular shapes. He
then pumps or stirs in liquor and passes an electric current through it.

The inventor claims he has experimented with various types of drink,
including French cognacs, and says that he has accelerated the process of
ageing without any subsequent reversal of the liquor’s state. Ten days in
the convoluted container will have the same effect as three to five years
of natural ageing, he claims. During the treatment, the liquor that is lost
by evaporation during natural ageing is cut by a thousandth.

A test run on grape brandy produced by the Beijing East Suburb Wine
Factory is said to have produced a mellow flavour from an unripe taste.